Downfall Director Thinks The Hitler Meme Is Hilarious

It's fair to say that most people upon completing a harrowing portrayal of the final days of Adolf Hitler as destruction, chaos and death slowly envelop the last stragglers of National Socialism, would be a tad peeved that the lasting legacy of their film would be an internet meme that involves people putting funny subtitles over the Fuhrer's psychotic ranting.

Thanks to YouTube, we all have now seen that famous Berlin bunker scene from the 2004 movie, Downfall - with Bruno Ganz as Hitler - where the Fuhrer's angry outburst concerning troop deployment has since been interpreted as anything from the omission of the squid in Watchmen to his disbelief after being scammed on eBay.

Find out what Downfall's director thinks of it all...
It's fair to say that most people upon completing a harrowing portrayal of the final days of Adolf Hitler as destruction, chaos and death slowly envelop the last stragglers of National Socialism, would be a tad peeved that the lasting legacy of their film would be an internet meme that involves people putting funny subtitles over the Fuhrer's psychotic ranting.

Thanks to YouTube, we all have now seen that famous Berlin bunker scene from the 2004 movie, Downfall - with Bruno Ganz as Hitler - where the Fuhrer's angry outburst concerning troop deployment has since been interpreted as anything from the omission of the squid in Watchmen to his disbelief after being scammed on eBay.

Thankfully, the film's director, Oliver Hirshbiegel, is in on the joke as was revealed in a recent interview with New York magazine's Vulture: "I think I've seen about 145 of them... Many times the lines are so funny, I laugh out loud," the director said.

"The point of the film was to kick these terrible people off the throne that made them demons, making them real and their actions into reality," he added. "I think it's only fair if now it's taken as part of our history, and used for whatever purposes people like."

Phew, that's a weight off - we thought he'd be livid. So in that spirit, here are three of our favourite Downfall meme moments...

(Warning: These clips contain bad language)

Hitler angry his Wikipedia editing privileges have been takes away...

Hitler discovers shocking news about Santa Claus...

And, just to prove the Internet will eventually eat itself, the whole thing has come full circle and Hitler is angry at all the Downfall parodies...